The  Minister 

and 

The  Community 


WOODROW  WILSON 


DOC 


presented  to  the 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  •  SAN  DIEGO 

by 

FRIENDS  OF  THE  LIBRARY 

Homer  Halvorson 

donor 


BV  4325  W5  191? 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA    SAN   DIEGO 


^Jlllll         ''saj 

3  1822  01165  6568  .  wO 


IDC^C 


THE  MINISTER 

AND  y 

THE  COMMUNITY  X 


>:5C 


mJ^^^^\— 


THE  MINISTER 

AND 

THE  COMMUNITY 


/  Woodrow  Wilson  x 


^Bdoctation  Ij^xtea 

New  York:      1:24  East  28th  Street 

London:  47  Paternoster  Row,  E.  C. 

1912 


i^cx: 


Dcx: 


Copyright,  1912,  by 
The  International  Committee  of 


r  The  International  Committee  of  V 


DOC 


:dc>c 


The  Minister 
and  The  Community 

^■^HERE  are  two  ideals  be- 
I  IJ.  tween  which  the  Church, 
first  and  last,  has  oscil- 
lated in  respect  to  the  position  that 
a  minister  ought  to  hold  in  the 
community.  The  one  is  the  ideal 
which  expects  the  minister  to  hold 
himself  aloof  from  the  ordinary 
transactions  of  life,  and  to  devote 
himself  exclusively,  and  I  was 
about  to  say  almost  ostentatiously, 
to  the  things  which  are  spiritual. 
This  is  the  ideal  which  has  led  to 
asceticism,  to  practices  of  the 
Church  which  have  absolutely  shut 


Dcx: 


Dcx: 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

the  priesthood  off  from  the  life  of 
the  community,  which  have  forced 
upon  them  an  unnatural  way  of  liv- 
ing and  an  unnatural  separation 
from  the  ordinary  interests  of  the 
world. 

Then  there  is  the  opposite  idea 
— that  the  minister  ought  to  be 
part  of  everything  in  a  community  X 

that  makes  for  its  betterment,  its 
improvement,  its  amelioration,  its 
reformation — that  he  should  take  a 
deep  interest  in  everything  that 
affects  the  life  of  the  community 
and  be  at  particular  pains  to  live  as 
other  men  live,  and  not  in  any  way 
show  himself  separate  from  the 
world,  not  in  any  way,  that,  at  any 


3c:>c 


THE   MINISTER   AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

rate  externally,  changes  the  current 
and  method  of  his  life.  Certain 
men  in  our  own  generation  have 
taken  the  position  that,  though  they 
wish  to  preach  the  Gospel  and  in- 
fluence men  to  come  to  Christ,  they 
will  have  a  greater  influence  if  they 
do  not  accept  the  ordination  of  the 
Church,  but  remain  laymen.  It  is 
their  impression  that  a  layman  can 
preach  straighter  to  the  hearts  of 
laymen  than  ministers  can.  There 
is  something  of  the  idea  creeping 
in  in  various  quarters,  that  the  lay 
instrumentalities  find  the  straight- 
est  roads  to  the  hearts  of  men,  and 
that  the  ministerial  instrumentality 
is  tainted  a  little  by  the  profession- 


DiOiC 


THE   MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

alism  which  is  in  it;  that  the  ad- 
vice of  the  professional  spiritual 
adviser  is  less  cogent  than  the 
advice  of  the  amateur  spiritual 
adviser.  This  is  the  extreme  form 
of  this  view. 

Let  us  acknowledge  at  the  out- 
set that  in  our  time  we  have  been 
trying  to  unfrock  the  ministerial 
profession,  literally  and  metaphor- 
ically. We  are  afraid  of  the  frock, 
we  are  afraid  of  the  sign,  we  are 
afraid  of  the  touch  of  professional- 
ism. It  is  a  characteristic  of  our 
time  that  we  wish  to  combine  all 
things  without  differentiation  in 
one  single  thing  that  we  call  life, 
and  the  consequence  is  that  we  do 


DCX 


THE   MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

not  know  what  we  would  be  at. 
The  consequence  is  that  no  man 
sees  distinctly  enough  the  particu- 
lar road  that  he  is  trying  to  tread, 
the  particular  function  which  he  is 
trying  to  perform  in  society.  He 
says, ' '  I  must  be  a  man, ' '  by  which 
he  means  an  added  general  force  in 
society  and  not  a  specialized  force 
in  society ;  by  which  he  means  that 
he  must  disperse  his  powers  and 
not  concentrate  them.  And  yet 
the  difficulty  of  modern  times  is 
this  very  dispersion  of  professional 
energy,  this  obliteration  of  the  lines 
that  run  and  should  run  between 
one  calling  and  another.  The  sol- 
dier is  proud  of  his  uniform  and  of 


:ycx. 


THE  MINISTER  AND   THE   COMMUNITY 

the  straps  over  his  arms  and  shoul- 
ders, the  mark  of  his  rank;  and 
every  man  v^^ho  counts  for  as  much 
of  direct  force  as  the  soldier  counts 
for  ought  to  be  proud  of  the  things 
that  distinguish  his  calling.  I  trust 
that  no  man  will  go  into  the  min- 
istry with  the  hope  that  he  can 
conceal  himself  in  the  crowd,  so 
that  no  man  may  know  that  he  is 
a  minister.  I  hope  that  he  may 
plan  his  life  so  that  nobody  may 
ever  associate  with  him  without 
knowing  that  he  is  a  minister. 

How  are  we  going  to  do  this? 
By  resuming  the  costume,  by  re- 
suming the  ritual,  by  resuming  the 
aloofness  and  separateness  from  the 

10 


do: 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

world  ?  That  would  be  better  than 
nothing.  It  is  true,  whether  we 
like  the  fact  or  not,  that  the  Roman 
Catholic  priesthood,  when  its  mem- 
bers have  really  remembered  their 
consecration  and  lived  true  to  it, 
have  made  a  deeper  impression 
upon  the  communities  they  lived 
A  in  than  the  Protestant  clergy,  be-  X 

' '  cause  they  were  men  whom  to  look  '  * 

upon  was  to  recall  the  fact  that 
they  were  commissioned  out  of 
the  unseen,  that  they  did  not  live 
as  other  men  lived,  that  they 
did  devote  themselves  to  something 
separate  and  apart;  that  it  was 
intended  that  when  thej^  came  into 

a   company   of    men,    those    men 

11 


JC^C 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE   COMMUNITY 

should  be  reminded  that  here  was 
a  commissioner  who  was  not  a 
commissioner  of  the  world;  and 
when  these  men  have  been  true 
to  that  standard  they  have  been 
incomparable  forces  in  the 
world. 

The  Protestant  minister  has  too 
much  forgotten  the  ideals  of  this 
separate  priesthood.  What  is  it 
that  the  minister  should  try  to  do? 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  minister 
should  try  to  remind  his  fellow-men 
in  everything  that  he  does  and  in 
everything  that  he  says,  that  eter- 
nity is  not  future,  but  present; 
that  there  is  in  every  transaction  of 
life  a  line  that  connects   it  with 

12 


DC^C 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

eternity,  and  that  our  lives  are  but 
the  visible  aspect  of  the  experiences 
of  our  spirits  upon  the  earth ;  that 
we  are  living  here  as  spirits ;  that 
our  whole  conduct  is  to  be  influ- 
enced by  things  that  are  invisible, 
of  which  we  must  be  constantly 
reminded  lest  our  eyes  should  be 
A  gluttonously  filled  with  the  things  X 

that  are  visible ;  that  we  should  be 
reminded  that  there  lurks  every- 
where, not  ungraciously  and  with 
forbidding  mien,  but  graciously 
and  with  salvation  on  its  counte- 
nance, the  image  and  the  memory 
of  Christ,  going  a  little  journey 
through  the  earth  to  remind  men 
of  the  fatherhood  of  God,  of  the 

13 


^^^^^^ 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE   COMMUNITY 

brotherhood  of  men,  of  the  journey 
that  all  spirits  are  taking  to  the 
land  that  is  unseen  and  to  which 
they  are  all  to  come. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  note 
how  miscellaneous  the  Church  of 
our  day  has  become  in  its  objects 
and  endeavors.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  how  central  it  regards  its 
kitchen  in  the  basement,  the  bowl- 
ing alley  attached  to  the  church, 
the  billiard  table  where  youngsters 
may  amuse  themselves,  the  gymna- 
sium— the  things  that  naturally 
associate  themselves  with  what  we 
call  the  institutional  work  of  the 
Church.  Did  you  ever  ask  your- 
self what  an   institution   is?     An 

14 


>o>< 

THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

institution  is  merely  a  way  of  doing 
some  particular  thing.  Now,  I  am 
not  now  making  any  objection  to 
entertainments,  fairs,  and  amuse- 
ments, but  I  do  want  to  call  your 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  per- 
sons whom  we  lead  to  do  these 
things  are  not  often  reminded  of 
why  it  is  that  we  ask  them  to  do 
them  there,  at  the  church.  I  have 
been  in  some  churches  where,  when 
these  things  were  going  on,  the 
minute  the  minister  came  into 
the  room,  you  somehow  got  the 
impression  that  you  had  been  re- 
minded of  something.  The  walls 
of  the  room  were  no  longer  as  solid 
as   they  were;     you    saw    bigger 

15 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE   COMMUNITY 

spaces;  the  mind  seemed  to  go 
back  to  dreams  that  had  seemed 
vague  before  you  at  your  mother's 
knee,  and  that  gentle  figure  there 
seemed  to  say :  "  It  is  dehghtful 
that  we  should  so  disport  ourselves, 
but  we  are  spirits.  We  know  each 
other  only  as  we  know  each  other 
spiritually,  and  only  as  these  things 
bind  us  together  in  an  eternal 
brotherhood  is  it  worth  while  to  be 
here. ' '  I  have  been  at  other  such 
gatherings  when  the  entrance  of 
the  minister  did  not  suggest  any- 
thing of  the  kind — when  only 
another  human  being  had  come  in 
to  the  room — a  human  being  who 
had   no   more   suggestion   of    the 

16 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

eternal  about  him  than  the  young- 
est person  present,  a  man  who  did 
not  carry  in  his  mien  and  attitude 
and  speech  any  message  whatever, 
whose  personahty  was  not  radiant 
with  anything. 

Now,  it  does  not  take  a  great 
man  to  radiate  a  pure  spirit,  because 
the  most  modest  gifts  can  be  asso- 
ciated with  very  deep  and  real 
religious  experiences,  and  the  spirit 
may  speak  when  the  tongue  is  tied. 
I  have  myself  witnessed  the  history 
of  a  pastor  whose  preaching  was 
impossible  but  whose  life,  divine; 
and  in  twenty  years  there  was  built 
up  a  power  out  of  that  church,  out 
of  what  I  might  call  that  speech- 

17 


I 


THE  MINISTER  AND   THE  COMMUNITY 

less  church,  which  did  not  radiate 
from  the  most  eloquent  pulpit  in 
the  other  churches  of  the  place; 
where  eloquence  seemed  empty 
alongside  of  radiant  godliness; 
where  the  spirit  seemed  to  have  a 
thousand  tongues  and  the  mind 
only  one;  where  the  doctrine  was 
more  expounded  by  the  daily  life 
of  the  one  pastor  than  by  all  the 
expositions  of  the  others.  If  you 
can  combine  the  two,  if  your  life 
can  display  the  secret  and  other- 
wise not  readily  understood  princi- 
ples of  the  Gospel  and  your  ser- 
mons expound  the  life  exemplified, 
then  you  have  something  irresisti- 
ble for  the  regeneration  and  revo- 

18 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

lution  of  a  community;  but  as 
compared  with  each  other,  the 
reminder  of  tlie  hfe  is  worth  a 
thousand  times  the  suggestion  of 
the  pulpit. 

Is  not  that  the  supreme  lesson  of 
the  life  of  Christ?  I  have  some- 
times thought  that  we  would  be 
unspeakably  enriched  if  we  had 
known  some  of  the  incidents  of  the 
days  that  Christ  lived  on  the  earth 
which  were  quite  distinct  and  sepa- 
rate from  His  teaching — the  ordi- 
nary, now  unregarded  incidents  of 
His  day.  For  I  am  sure  that  there 
we  should  have  had  an  example 
infinitely  fruitful  for  our  own  guid- 
ance,  and   should  have  been  con- 

19 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

scious  that  in  everything  that  He 
said,  every  little  thing  that  He  did, 
there  was  a  divine  suggestion,  a 
suggestion  of  divinity  which  was 
not  a  rebuke  to  humanity,  but 
which  heartened  and  revealed  all 
that  was  best  of  itself,  seemed  like 
a  sweet  air  out  of  some  unattained 
country,  like  a  light  coming  from 
some  source  that  other  men  could 
not  uncover ;  and  that  it  must  have 
been  infinitely  gracious  to  have 
Him  lodge  in  the  house.  There 
must  have  seemed  an  atmosphere 
lingering  there  which  made  it  im- 
possible to  forget  that  time  was 
part  of  eternity. 

Now  the  world  is  not  going  to 

20 


^^^^^^^ 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

be  saved  except  the  minister  model 
himself  on  Christ.  The  world  is 
not  going  to  be  evangelized  unless 
the  minister  distinguish  himself 
from  the  community.  The  Church 
is  not  going  to  recover  its  author- 
ity among  men  until  its  ministers 
display  their  credentials  in  their 
A  lives,  by  showing  that  the  thought  A 

that  is  in  them  is  always  the 
thought  that  makes  for  salvation; 
that  they  will  not  teach  the  things 
that  are  impure ;  that  they  will  not 
play  with  the  things  that  are  dan- 
gerous ;  that  they  are  not  reform- 
ers, but  ministers  of  Christ.  Did 
you  ever  notice  that  Christ  was  not 
a  reformer?     Not   that  He  would 


21 


3cx: 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

have  frowned  upon  a  reformer,  but 
He  was  not  a  reformer.  He  was 
not  organizing  men  to  do  what  is 
necessary  to  be  done  in  order  to 
reconstruct  and  better  human  life. 
He  was  supplying  the  whole  mo- 
tive force  of  that  and  everything 
else.  It  is  just  as  much  of  a  reform 
to  go  into  a  household  where  there 
is  not  the  sweetness  of  Christian 
feeling  and  introduce  it  there  by 
contagion,  as  it  is  to  sit  on  a  plat- 
form at  a  public  meeting  intended 
to  set  forward  some  missionary 
enterprise. 

I  remember — for  I  have  had  the 
unspeakable  joy  of  having  been 
born  and  bred  in  a  minister's  family 

22 


DOC 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

— I  remember  one  occasion  which 
made  a  very  profound  impression 
upon  me  when  T  was  a  lad,  in  a  com- 
pany of  gentlemen  where  my  father 
was  present,  and  where  I  happened 
to  be,  unobserved.  One  of  the 
gentlemen  in  a  moment  of  excite- 
ment uttered  an  oath,  and  then, 
X  his  eye  resting  upon  my  father,  he  X 

''  said  with  evident  sincerity:   "Dr.  '' 

Wilson,  1  beg  your  pardon;  I  did 
not  notice  that  you  were  present. ' ' 
"  Oh,"  said  my  father,"  you  mis- 
take, sir ;  it  is  not  to  me  you  owe 
the  apology. ' '  1  doubt  if  any  other 
one  remark  ever  entered  quite  so 
straight  to  the  quick  in  me  as  that 
did,   the    consciousness    that    my 


DC^C 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

father,  taken  by  surprise,  was  at 
once  so  conscious  that  he  was  not 
the  person  offended,  that  he  should 
so  naturally  call  the  attention  of 
the  man  who  had  uttered  the  oath 
to  what  was  the  simple  fact,  that 
the  offense  was  not  to  him  but  to 
his  Master.  It  was  exactly  as  if  a 
disrespectful  word  had  been  spoken 
of  the  President  of  the  United 
States  in  the  presence  of  an  ambas- 
sador of  the  United  States;  the 
apology  would  be  due  not  to  him 
but  to  his  government.  And  if 
ministers  could  always  so  contrive 
it  that  in  their  presence  the  presence 
of  God  was  manifest,  the  whole 
problem  of  the  ministry  would  be 

24 


Dczx: 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

solved  and  evangelization  would  be 
irresistible. 

There  is  only  one  way  by  which 
fire  is  spread  and  that  is  by  contact. 
The  thing  to  be  ignited  must  touch 
the  fire,  and  unless  the  fire  burns  in 
you,  nobody  will  be  lighted  by 
contact  with  you.  No  amount  of 
X  studious  knowledge  of  the  subject-  X 

matter  or  of  the  methods  of  your 
profession  will  do  you  the  least 
degree  of  service  unless  it  is  on  fire, 
and  has  communicated  its  fire  to 
your  very  heart  and  substance. 

Let  every  man,  therefore,  who 
goes  into  the  ministry  set  himself 
apart ;  let  every  man  who  goes  into 
the    ministry   go    into   it   with   a 

85 


^^    ^^ 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

determination  that  nobody  shall 
fail  to  know  that  he  is  a  minister  of 
the  Gospel.  It  can  be  graciously 
done,  without  austerity,  without 
rebuke,  without  offensiveness ;  it 
can  be  done  by  the  simple  method 
merely  of  being  conscious  yourself 
that  you  are  minister  of  God.  For 
what  a  man  is  conscious  of  believ- 
ing, he  communicates  to  those  who 
consort  with  him;  what  a  man  is 
known  to  stand  for,  he  transmits 
to  those  who  are  in  his  presence 
though  he  speak  never  a  word. 
And  this  consciousness  of  his  will 
be  the  consciousness  of  every  com- 
pany he  moves  in,  a  sweet  con- 
sciousness that  will  make  his  pres- 

26 


DC^C 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

ence  very  gracious  and  everything 
he  does  acceptable  to  those  with 
whom  he  consorts — not  shutting 
him  off  from  the  ordinary  relation- 
ships of  life,  but  irradiating  those 
relationships,  making  them  the 
means  of  spreading  the  conscious- 
ness he  has  of  what  he  is. 
A  When  1  hear  some  of  the  things  A 

which  young  men  say  to  me  by 
way  of  putting  the  arguments  to 
themselves  for  going  into  the  min- 
istry, I  think  that  they  are  talking 
of  another  profession.  Their  mo- 
tive is  to  do  something,  when  it 
should  be  to  be  something.  You 
do  not  have  to  be  anything  in  par- 
ticular to  be  a  lawyer.    I  have  been 

27 


DOC 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

a  lawyer  and  I  know.  You  do  not 
have  to  be  anything  in  particular, 
except  a  kind-hearted  man,  perhaps, 
to  be  a  physician ;  you  do  not  have 
to  be  anything,  nor  to  undergo  any 
strong  spiritual  change  in  order  to 
be  a  merchant.  The  only  profession 
which  consists  in  being  something 
is  the  ministry  of  our  Lord  and 
Saviour — and  it  does  not  consist  of 
anything  else.  It  is  manifested  in 
other  things,  but  it  does  not  con- 
sist of  anything  else.  And  that 
conception  of  the  minister  which 
rubs  all  the  marks  of  it  off  and 
mixes  him  in  the  crowd  so  that  you 
cannot  pick  him  out,  is  a  process 
of  eliminating  the  ministry  itself. 

28 


V  ^<r^ 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

Now,  it  is  all  very  easy  to  say 
these  things ;  it  is  impossible  to  do 
these  things  except  by  the  influ- 
ence and  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
If  I  could  do  the  various  things  the 
right  method  of  doing  which  I 
understand,  I  should  be  a  most  use- 
ful person.  I  know  that  we  all 
should  in  some  measure  be  minis- 
ters of  Christ,  and  a  man  does  not 
like  to  say  the  things  that  I  have 
said  and  remember  how  little  he 
has  used  his  own  profession  to  ex- 
press that  ministry.  But,  because 
we  are  imperfect,  is  it  not  the 
more  necessary  to  know  what  the 
ideal  is,  to  see  it  clearly,  to  see  it 
steadily  enough  not  to  lose  sight 

29 


THE  MINISTER  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

of  it?  If  you  lost  the  vision  where 
would  you  go?  If  you  did  not 
know  what  you  would  be  at,  how 
would  you  ever  find  the  way  again? 
If  you  did  not  know  what  it  was 
that  you  were  embarking  in,  how 
could  you  make  sure  that  you  had 
found  the  right  course  of  life? 
And  the  beauty  of  the  Gospel  is 
that  it  is  a  Gospel  which  leaves  us, 
not  the  barren  hope  that  in  our 
own  strength  we  can  be  useful,  but 
the  splendid,  fruitful  hope  that 
there  is  One  who  if  we  but  rely 
upon  Him  can  inform  us  with 
these  things  and  make  our  spirits 
to  be  the  true  spirits  of  God. 


30 


DC^C 


Dd^C 


The  Claims  and  Opportunities 
of  the  Christian  Ministry 


JOHN   R.  MOTT,  Editor 
Cloth,  50  cents 


WITH   INTRODUCTION  FROM    A   LETTER 
WRITTEN  TO  THE  EDITOR  BY 

Theodore  Roosevelt 


TEN  chapters  by  leading  educators  and 
clergymen,  whose  special  fitness  for  pre- 
senting important  phases  of  this  subject  has 
made  this  volume  one  of  unique  interest  and 
unusual  practical  value.  Following  are  the 
names  of  the  contributors: 

george  angier  gordon.  william  fraser 
McDowell,  edward  increase  bosworth. 
walter  william  moore.  phillips  brooks, 
woodrow  wilson.  arthur  stephen  hoyt. 
charles     edward     jefferson.       george 

HODGES. 


ASSOCIATION  PRESS 

New  York:    124  East  28th  Street 
London  :  47  Paternoster  Row,  E.  C. 


D<Z>C 


T-S^ 


9' 


l<=[ 


Ij^ 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    000  364  268    3 


